


Undone

by xanzpet (gleefulmusings)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Language, POV First Person, Romance, Season 5 Spoilers, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-01 00:12:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleefulmusings/pseuds/xanzpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suddenly there are two Xanders, and Riley is undone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Second

**Author's Note:**

> This story has proven to be one of my most popular and I'm rather proud of it, but as it's written in stream-of-consciousness form, it can be a very difficult read due to the lack of punctuation. It might help were you to read it aloud, or at the very least mouth the words as you read them. If you have the patience to attempt it, I'd be thrilled, and please let me know what you think. I'll let you know it advance that there will be no sequel, as this proved rather exhausting to write.

 

 

 

 

 

I still don’t know how it happened.

There had been a demon, and then Buffy had appeared, and then there had been two Xanders.

Two Xanders were two too many.

There was too much laughter and too many loud clothes and too much floppy hair. There were too many pink tongues nervously licking too many pouty lips. There were too many flashes of collarbone pressing up against too much soft, pale skin; too many dark brown eyes staring soulfully at me and making me want to cuddle him. There were too many earnest looks and too many big feet and too much scent of Xander: ice cream and coconut and hero.

Why couldn’t there have been two Buffys? Buffi?

Because two Xanders raised too many possibilities, presented too many opportunities, offered too many fantasies.

So why had I agreed to let one of them come home with me and pass the night at the frat house and how did I get stuck with the randy one? The one who looked at me with knowing rather than without guile? The one who ogled me and leered? The one whose perpetual expression was a lusty smirk? The one whose shoulder bumped mine constantly and whose hand accidentally caressed my ass?

And how was an ass-caressing accidental? And why did my ass tingle where his hand had been? And how could I get Xander the Second to do it again?

“She doesn’t love you,” the other him told me.

“I know,” I whispered.

And then he was on me, and – _god_ – he was so strong, much stronger than I ever thought, and I liked it. I liked that there were no words, no halfhearted declarations or trite endearments. I liked that he pushed me over a headstone and ground his cock against my ass and whispered wetly into my ear after biting down on the lobe and drawing blood.

“I could love you.”

And he could and I wanted him to.

So I took him back to the dorm and he threw me on the bed and I loved that he was forceful because I looked into his eyes and saw that he saw only me. There was no memory of a souled vampire or a father who neglected him or a sick mother or a bratty kid sister. There was nothing looking back at me except naked hunger, and it was for me alone, and there was no need to go to vampires to make me feel something because he was making me feel _everything_. He was making me feel like Riley Finn and not the Slayer’s minion.

And he fell on top of me and plundered my mouth and his lips were so soft but so unlike hers and he tasted like sawdust and sweat and chocolate. I didn’t taste Anya. I didn’t taste ashes or death or fear or obligation. I didn’t feel like the runner up or the second choice or the third wheel. I didn’t need to beg or plead or scream for notice. I didn’t need to cajole or whine or wonder.

He sat up and pulled his shirt off and it was so different but then he was on me again and my hands were on his back and he was so warm and alive and _present_. He hissed at my touch and burrowed against me as if he couldn’t get enough and yet _I_ was enough. His fingers dug into my waistband and his touch was like fire and there were far too many clothes and I couldn’t get them off fast enough.

He laughed and it wasn’t mocking and he unbuckled my pants and stared into my eyes and didn’t rush me or give me a schedule or make me feel like I was another responsibility to be penciled in. He pulled up my shirt and trailed kisses up my stomach and it was so strange to feel lips there because she never did that because it was too intimate. Then he rested his cheek on my breast and listened to my heartbeat and whispered my name and I was so hard that I ached.

I ran my fingers through his hair and it was so soft, softer than hers, and he moaned my name and shuddered. He took one of my nipples in his lush mouth and sucked and then bit and I howled. He moved up my body and our cocks twitched against each other and we groaned in unison. He put his face in my neck and sucked at the hollow and my whole body jerked as I screamed his name.

And then his eyes were glittering topazes staring down at me and I didn’t care what was going to happen or how it worked or who found out because he wanted me.

He reached into my shorts and took a hold of me and I squealed and he told me I was beautiful and no one had ever told me that before. I tried to take off my pants but he batted my hands away because he wanted to do it, because he wanted to see me, and suddenly I was shy. I must have blushed because he reached up and brushed my cheek with his fingers and told me again I was beautiful.

He carefully undressed me and murmured to himself and maybe I was beautiful because he made me feel that way.

He tore off his clothes as if they were offensive for more than just their style, and he collapsed on top of me and I was panting because he was tall and broad and strong and almost covered me completely. And we could have stayed this way and I would have been happy just holding him and having him hold me because I finally felt safe in another’s embrace.

“Let me love you,” he whispered.

And I nodded frantically and he moved down my body and took me into his mouth and I almost came right then because it had never been this good with anyone. I wanted to ask him how he knew how to do this and was I his first and had he thought about doing this with me before except I really didn’t want to know any of the answers. I just wanted to be with him.

So close, I was so close and he knew it and smiled around my cock and his fingers dug into my hips and the pain was so exquisite that I hoped he left bruises. And then he was doing something with his tongue that made me turn my head and scream into my pillow because all I saw were stars which twinkled like his eyes. And then he was on me again and I could taste myself on him and it was sexy and I wanted more because it was me and him mixed together.

I wanted to taste him but I was scared because I didn’t know what to do and he looked at me with such tenderness and his eyes said I didn’t have do anything. It was sweet, but I knew he wanted it and I wanted to give it to him, so I slithered down his body and I looked at it. It was big, not as big as mine, but thicker, and he gasped when I touched it and he sighed my name.

I kissed it and it was musky but the skin was so soft, like titanium encased in velvet, and it was Xander and Xander was my friend and Xander loved me, and I took my Xander in my mouth and I tried not to gag and to do everything he had done to me. He fisted my hair in his hands and babbled my name and I didn’t care if my jaw hurt or if it was a little difficult to breathe because _I_ was doing this to him, making his body react like this and making him whisper my name like it was a benediction.

He tried to warn me and I didn’t care because I wanted it, wanted him, and then he was spilling down my throat and it wasn’t bitter like I expected, but bittersweet. And then I released him and he leaned over and grabbed my shoulders and pulled me atop him and held me. He kissed my cheek and stroked my chest and kneaded my ass and told me I was beautiful and special and I almost believed him.

We kissed and kissed and he made my toes curl and my skin quiver because all of his attention was on me and making me feel good.

Then he held my face and his hands were like words and I nodded despite my fear and he rolled us over. His tongue swept down my spine and then he was doing something to me which I hadn’t even known was possible and I hoped it would never end. His fingers laced with mine and I could feel his heartbeat through his palm and I closed my eyes and prayed.

It was the first time in a long time that my prayers weren’t that someone wouldn’t die but that I might live.

And then there was a finger and I burned, but once stoked the fire blazed and I wanted more. He complied and there was another finger and then another and I felt like I had been split open in sacrifice and was waiting for my god.

He entered me and there was tantalizing agony before I was consumed and filled in a way I thought had been denied to me. He rocked inside me and against me and I clenched him and our heartbeats were one. He pressed a gentle kiss to my back and I was so touched I began to cry and he nuzzled my neck and licked my tears. Then the fire slowed, and my blood slowed, and there was just him. He roared and fell over the edge, taking me with him, and every cell in my body awoke and sang.

He collapsed on top of me and his pants were like feathers. He asked me if I was okay and I was. He asked me if he had hurt me and he had, but the pain wasn’t physical. And when I rolled over and cuddled beside him, I realized that tomorrow they would find a way to put him back, to make him whole, and I mourned.

He knew what I was thinking and he brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my fingers, and he told me that it didn’t matter because we would always have this, and that a part of him now belonged only to me. Not to Anya nor Willow nor Buffy nor Cordelia, but me alone, and it was enough.

He could love me.


	2. Linger

One week. That’s how long it's been. 

Seven days seven deadly sins seven chakras seven planes of existence seven days since he created me.

The curse or the spell or whatever it was had been broken the next day and Xander had been himself again. Whole beautiful magnificent in all his imperfections because to me he was perfect. But he wasn’t my Xander when he looked at me. 

When he looked at me there was shame and rage and humiliation and such abject longing my heart clutched. His face was a kaleidoscope, his expressions fractured images. 

What did he see when he looked at me? Did he blame me? Did he think I had seduced him? Forced him, forced him to be with me or to betray Buffy or Anya or make him relive what he had done to Cordelia?

Did he know I loved him?

He had stopped talking to Buffy. She thought it was because she had berated him for once again throwing himself into the middle of a battle and nearly getting killed, she thought he would go off and lick his wounds and cool down and come back and everything would be the same. Except it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be, and everyone knew it, even her, though her capacity for denial startled even me with my Masters in Shrink. 

Xander had disappeared for a week, and Anya with him.

When she came back, she said nothing to anyone about anything other than that she and Xander were no longer together and that it had been his choice, not hers, and to kindly stay out of it, thank you, because we weren’t her friends anyway. Her eyes caught mine for a moment and I knew that she knew – oh, god! – she _knew_ , he had told her, and I was paralyzed that she would tell Buffy or Willow or Giles or, hell, even Spike, anything to get a little vengeance going, and who could blame her really? 

But she didn’t say anything and so no one said anything and no one questioned and she restocked shelves and waited on customers and Buffy and Willow held conversations with their eyes and Spike and Dawn with their snickers but no one asked me what I thought because none of them cared, only he had cared.

And my arms ached with his absence and my lips burned as they remembered his and my body convulsed whenever his face flashed in my mind which was all the time because he was all I could think about and I couldn’t sleep or eat and Buffy wanted sex and I couldn’t give it to her and she said it was all right but I knew that it wasn’t and I didn’t even care because she wasn’t him. 

Xander Xander Xander. I need Xander. 

I need him like the air I can no longer breathe and the food which has lost all taste and the world which is colorless because the sky is the color of burnt-out light bulbs. 

Beautiful Xander who had told me I was beautiful and I couldn’t believe it because she didn’t love me so how could anyone else but he had. For one incredible night, just hours really, I had been his and he had been inside me and now he was gone and everything hurt and nothing made sense and he wasn’t here to make it better because that’s what Xanders do, they make things better and where is he? 

Xander Xander Xander. My Xander? 

Yes he’s mine because I can love him I know I can and I didn’t mean to hurt Anya and I don’t want to hurt Buffy but this pain this incredible pain which used to be manageable has now metastasized and is constant and looming and consuming with its emptiness because there’s nothing without him I’m nothing without him because those few hours had been everything.

Dumb luck. Love is just dumb luck and you’re rambling along in your own little world and then you collide with someone you never saw coming who shows you what you had never known you were missing and opens up a window to what you never thought your life could be. He’s my window my ticket out of this my sanity my lover my friend my Xander. And I’m going crazy without him and I don’t know what to do and Buffy is starting to suspect something because I won’t let her sleep over because what if I call out his name what if I reach out for him and she’s there and I pull her toward me and then push her away because as much as I believed with everything inside me that she was the one she’s not the one.

He’s the one. 

God I need him. He had taken my body like a cannibal no port spared and now the hunger has passed to me. Hungry, so hungry for him it’s like my soul is starving and I don’t want to need him this way because it’s not fair to him and he didn’t ask for this and it doesn’t matter that I didn’t either because I’m the one obsessing. I’m the one who hasn’t washed my sheets for a week because I can still smell his hair on my pillow I’m the one who hung my clothes on a hanger - the clothes he had so painstakingly taken off my body - because he had touched them and when I put them on I can pretend the fibers are his hands and he’s holding me again and he hasn’t gone away and he hasn’t left me alone and it’s like I’m being haunted but no matter how hard I try I can’t give up the ghost or even find the ghost. 

Where is he? 

Please please please send him back to me and let him hold me and tell me everything’s going to be okay because he loves me as much as I love him and it wasn’t a mistake please don’t let him think it was a mistake because if he does I’ll die.

Fear is like a ripple on water any pebble dropping any tiny thing can set it off and now I am a whirlpool nothing but a great sucking mass and every thought every feeling every desire centers around him and nothing else matters but bringing him back to me. 

Where is he? 

Mad, I’m going mad without him. Is this what Anya feels? Is this what it had been like for Cordelia? 

And no one’s talking to Anya and no one ever speaks of Cordelia and is that what will happen to me? I’ll just disappear fade away like I was never there like he had never touched me? 

Can’t stand this, I can’t stand this. 

Every night I sleep in my empty bed and he’s not there but he is because he lingers like the last snow of winter or the last piece of pizza and soon I won’t even be able to stand being in my room because he’s not there and when my eyes close at night I dream of angels but live with demons.


	3. Nadir

Scent is the most powerful sense.

Buffy and I meet up with Willow and Tara at the Espresso Pump and Tara and I grab the drinks while Buffy and Willow claim a table and though I try to maneuver it so that Buffy isn’t on top of me she is and I wince. 

We crack the lids on the styrofoam cups and I’m hit with a waft of Tara’s hot chocolate and it’s like he’s standing right before me and my brain goes on autopilot as my cock grows hard and I cringe when Buffy notices and gives me a feline smile and how can I tell her that she’s the furthest thing from my mind? 

It’s been two weeks now since he came inside me and I haven’t been able to bring myself to have sex with her because it would be adulterous and it’s crazy that I consider sleeping with my girlfriend to be cheating on Xander when I had first cheated on Buffy with him. 

Maybe I am crazy or maybe I always was because he unlocked something so deep within me it had been unknown and I’ve tried and tried to find the key to shut it away again but I can’t. Is he the key? Is that why I exhaust myself on patrol and then pace my floors all night long because as long as I’m moving I’m not thinking and I’m not wondering where he is and when he’s coming back and if he’ll come inside me again.

Dirty. I’m dirty. How can I do this to her? I’m not this person I know I’m not I was raised better than this, to _be_ better than this but I hold her hand and kiss her lips and tell her the words and I don’t mean any of it, none of it, and I’m terrified that the next time I kiss her I’ll see his face and that appalls me because she doesn’t deserve that. 

It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t love me and that I no longer love her because by staying with her and not telling the truth I’m perpetuating a lie that is in many ways worse than the affair. And I want to feel bad for Anya and I do but I don’t regret anything and if Xander comes home and decides he wants me I’ll dump Buffy so fast her head will spin and she might kill me but I’ll die happy because for the first time in so long I’ll have a made a choice which doesn’t undercut my conscience and it makes me feel horrible and selfish but I’m so tired of doing the right thing for everyone else I’m tired of being the bigger person and making sacrifices and turning the other cheek and denying what I really want and thinking I don’t deserve better.

I hate him. I hate him as much as I love him because until he touched me I had convinced myself that I was happy and that I could settle and be accepting and now I know that I can never be any of those things because she’s not enough for me. But then I argue with myself because I know I’m not enough for her either because I’m too alive to make her feel alive and I know she will never love anyone the way she loves Angel because she doesn’t want to because she can’t let him go because that would mean that he has made a life without her and she can’t accept that she’s no longer the center of his world when his ghost still colors her every thought feeling and action. 

And I wonder if this is natural if this would have happened even without Xander fucking me - oh god I can still feel him inside me - because I know he went through something similar with her and I’m struck by the odd realization that I am Xander.

I’m the one who is supposed to love her unconditionally and constantly support her and follow her commands even when I disagree with her as well as going down on her and making sure she comes at least three times before I come once because I’m the Xander she has sex with. 

I’m the Xander who’s as tall as Angel but opposite in looks - and did anyone ever notice that Angel and Xander kind of look alike? - and I’m the Xander who won’t argue with her when I think she’s wrong and I’m the Xander who’s too afraid to tell her what I really feel and on some level she knows this and it’s why she’s with me because Xander is so much stronger than I am and no one’s ever realized it not even Xander and maybe the reason she never tried with Xander is because he’s too strong for her. 

And even though I will always love her I’m not sure I ever liked her and what does that say about me that I was so desperate to have this beautiful girl at my side that I defied my instincts and my self-respect and did everything I could to hold on to her? 

That’s not love that’s obsession and I was just as obsessed with her as she was with Angel and I’m terrified that I’ve transferred that obsession to Xander and is it love I feel for him or is it longing to be loved the way she could never love me the way I think I deserve to be? Is it longing to be loved the way I thought I loved her the way she still longs for Angel and the way Anya longs for Xander and the way I know Willow still longs for Xander and I think Tara notices that too and why can’t I be as good as Tara and just accept things? 

I love him I have to believe that because I need to believe that I could never hurt him the way Buffy has hurt me and has hurt Xander and has hurt everyone who loves her and it’s not that I want to be better than Buffy I just want to be better than what I have been.

I want to do the right thing but there’s nothing right about any of this and I’m so angry I’m angry at myself and at Buffy and at Xander and at Maggie for ever bringing me here and at Forrest for dying and at Graham for leaving me all alone. 

I’m angry at Xander for looking at me and for really seeing me the way I know he’s always wanted to be seen, the way I see him now and maybe it would have been better if I had never known his touch his tongue his hands his cock maybe it would have been better if I had just gone through my life experiencing things on the periphery as if I was in a perpetual hazy twilight because I used to have logic and reason and now that’s gone and there’s nothing but feeling and fire and ice and elements and I feel like I’ve finally woken up only to realize my nightmares have never been as scary as the truth.

But he is my truth and I do love him and I know this like I know how to breathe it’s just instinct and it’s involuntary and I’ll die without him and be grateful for it because there is no going back as my life is now divided into Before and After Xander and what will be the After-life? If he’s not part of it I know I’ll have to leave because there is no way I can be around him every day and not touch kiss lick suck fuck love him. 

My God he’s a vampire he’s an emotional vampire and that’s his gift he makes people feel things and he doesn’t do it on purpose he just inspires it by being him by being wonderful and hopeful and happy and sad and angry because he’s every emotion and instead of draining you he suffuses you and forces you to feel in ways you never have before.

And now Buffy’s trying to worm her way into my crotch and a quick glance at Willow tells me she knows what her friend is up to and thinks it’s cute but then I look at Tara and she’s staring at me with those huge blue eyes which are no longer limpid but calculating and tragic and even if she doesn’t know about Xander she knows something is wrong and she’s been so easily dismissed because she’s always so quiet and now I realize that as much as Xander knows all of us so does she but she’s smarter because none of us really knows her.

Naked. Xander’s made me naked to the world and everything I had been trained to choke force down and ignore is now bubbling at the surface pressing up against my skin like bone spurs and it's only a matter of time before I erupt and maybe I should just get it over with and take care of myself for once and go to Anya and demand she tell me where Xander is and go to him and scream at him and kiss him and make him love me because I think I could die from this I could die just from feeling _so much_ because it’s more than I can bear it’s more than I want to bear and is knowing yourself really worth the risk of losing everything you have?

Weak. I’m so weak. When did I become like this? Is it her fault or his fault or my fault or is it because of the Initiative or Maggie’s drugs or my parents or Iowa or the Hellmouth and does any of it really matter anymore? 

And part of me knows that all of this is moot because he won’t choose me he won’t pick me over Her because he puts Her in front of everyone even though She has never done that for him and maybe he’s as weak as I am. 

When I see his face am I seeing him or am I seeing me? Will knowing him help me to know myself? But it already has and I finally understand what the goddamn apple really is and why it was such a threat and poor Eve really got a raw deal.

And she’s still touching me and I feel soiled and I fidget and that only encourages her and I get her to stop the only way I know how by asking if anyone’s heard from Xander and then she gets angry at Xander and Willow gets teary and Tara gets worried. 

And now Buffy is railing and I can zip up my pants and I casually offer to swing by the basement to see if he’s home and the others are relieved because they don’t want to have to ask Anya or deal with Xander’s parents so I say it’s no problem and I’ll just go right now and how the hell did I ever manage to pass Covert Ops when my legs feel like rubber and I can feel sweat breaking out above my lip?

I step outside and the slightly metallic taste of autumn rushes my mouth and I feel crisp and biting and I decide if he’s not home then I’m packing a bag and going after him because I’m military and I know how to track people and I will find him because I can’t go on this way and I’m nervous because what if he hasn’t given me a second thought other than regret? Did he leave to avoid me to forget me to get over me? Is he angry disgusted disappointed in me in himself in our lives? 

And I run and I run faster until I’m running on empty and only when I arrive at his house do I remember leaving my car at the coffee shop. And I knock on the door and his mother answers and she’s drunk and that’s pathetic and she looks at me like she should know me but can’t quite place me and I bark his name and she nods and steps aside and I wonder if she knows about vampires but all I can think is that if she’s inviting me in he must be home so I barrel toward the stairs and I throw the door open and slam it after I cross the threshold and I clamber down and I see him.

Ohgodohgodohgod I see him he’s really there and I can smell him and someone needs to bottle that scent because they’d become a billionaire because it’s sexysweetspicy innocence and power and no else one could ever _smell_ like that and I pause to inhale like it’s ambrosia because it is because he is my god and I am his supplicant and never have I felt so needy and so ashamed.

I see him tense and I know that he knows its me like he can smell me too like he can hear my heartbeat as he did that night when he moved inside me and his back is to me and he won’t turn around and his hands are fists at his sides and immediately I know I shouldn’t push this because he’s not ready but I can’t leave because it’s been forever.

And I cross the room and stand behind him and he still won’t turn around so I grab his shoulders and force him to face me and my nails dig into his flesh and I know I’m hurting him but I’m past caring because all I can feel is my own pain hunger longing want for him, all for him. But he refuses to meet my gaze and Christ he’s so thin he looks likes he’s lost twenty pounds and I can tell he hasn’t eaten or slept and I’m so sad so sorry so many things and I fall to my knees and tears fall from my eyes and I sob into his crotch and then his hands are in my hair and my sobs become purrs and he’s trembling and I can smell his desire and I know that it’s now or never because I might never have the courage again.

His cock is hardening against my cheek and I smell his musk and I know it’s for me and it’s all I want and I begin mouthing him through his jeans and he abruptly releases me and I know this isn’t what he wants but he isn’t saying stop and so I need to convince him make him realize that he’s everything and I’ve never wanted anything or anyone this much and I’ll do anything I can to make him mine and I unzip his pants with my teeth and I hear his intake of breath and I’m nuzzling his briefs and I try to take him in my mouth but he pivots his hips away.

I growl and grab those hips and pull them flush with my face and I hear him choke and I feel his tears like burning snow fall on my head and then I’m angry and I push him back and he falls across the couch and I’m on him and he’s not helping me undress him but he’s not fighting me either and I just need to show him _prove_ to him that I love him that I want him that we can make this work and I have his shirt open and his jeans pulled down to his thighs and my face is pressed into his neck and I can taste him and it’s even better than I remember because he’s so _Xander_ and his name is now an adjective of all things holy.

And then I feel his arms go around my neck and I feel him start to rock beneath me and it’s bliss sheer bliss and my eyes are closed because I’m scared to look into his but I know I have to and so I open them and that’s when I see his tears and that’s when I realize his arms aren’t around my neck but against my shoulders and that he's not rocking beneath me, he’s trying to get away.

Ohgodohgodohgod oh bleeding Christ on the cross what the fuck am I doing? What am I doing to him? 

I freeze and collapse on top of him and I’m howling and sobbing and pleading and begging for him to forgive me because I would never hurt him this way I would never _want_ to hurt him this way because I love him more than I love my life and it would be easier if he killed me right now because I’ll never be able to live with myself and I’m sorry so sorry sorry sorry sorry.

And his arms go around me for real and he’s holding me and kissing my cheek and telling me he understands and he knows I didn’t know what I was doing and it makes me cry harder because there’s no excuse and where the hell is Buffy when evil shit like me needs killing?

And all of a sudden there are hard blows against my back and I hear screaming and ranting and raving and he’s begging her to stop that it’s okay that she doesn’t understand and I realize she’s here and I sit up and turn around but it’s not her face looking back at me and I hear him say Please Cordy and that’s what I realize she’s Cordelia Chase and Xander must have been with her in Los Angeles these past two weeks and she’s come home with him and she must know everything that happened and our first introduction is her seeing me try to rape her ex-boyfriend. 

And she’s utterly gorgeous in an absolutely terrifying way and her brown eyes are a shade lighter than his except hers look like snapping dobermans and I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life because I look into those eyes and _understand_ that she not only wants to kill me but that she will and then Xander scrambles to get up and steps between us and puts his arms around her and pulls her away and is babbling things but she’s staring at me like I’m the scum I know I am and she’s practically hyperventilating and she’s vibrating with fury and scratching her arms where hives have broken out and all I can do is stand there and hang my head and cry and stare at my feet like a complete asshole.

And her screams begin to overpower his and she has a vocabulary which would put most of my unit to shame and she’s threatening to call Giles and Buffy and _Joyce_ and making Angel come down here to kill me and finding a way to get the chip out of Spike’s head so he can help her kill me because she remembers all too well what he did to Angel and there will be hot pokers and bloodlettings and they’ll never find my body and I finally understand that this woman is Xander’s first girlfriend and she’s more frightening than Buffy could ever hope to be.

But he’s forcing her to focus and to look at him and to listen to him and I hear his words and I can’t believe he’s saying them that I wasn’t trying to hurt him because he knows I would never force myself on him it’s just that I’ve missed him as much as he’s missed me and I ache for him like he aches for me and I’m as crazy as he’s made himself these past two weeks and he loves me so much that he can’t breathe and he needs her help because she’s the only one who’s ever understood who he really is and I’m sobbing harder and I force myself to look at her and she’s melting melting melting and now she’s crying and hugging him and telling him how much she’s missed him and now that she has him back she’s never letting him go again and if this is really what he wants she’ll support him every step of the way up to and including beating Buffy into the ground and I bet she could do it too and her head’s on his shoulder and she’s looking right into my eyes and I know I’m not forgiven and won’t be any time soon which is fine because I’ll never forgive myself and I see death in her eyes and part of me wants to embrace it.

And then he releases her and launches himself at me and pulls me to the couch and somehow manages to fold me into his lap and he’s cooing and smoothing my hair and wiping away my tears and he’s telling me he loves me and that he understands and he feels the same and he’s so sorry he left me but he had to be honest with Anya because he couldn’t lie to her the way he had lied to Cordelia and he wants me and only me but only if I want him and if I want to stay with Buffy we’ll find some way to make it work because he’ll always be my friend 

but all I hear is I love you blah blah blah blah blah.

He loves me.

Helovesme **he** lovesmehe **loves** meheloves **me** helovesme.


End file.
